Octopuses have become my favourite animals because it’s very clear that they possess super powers from an alien world and even clearer that they use those powers for evil (or exactly how I would use them). Here’s an octopus showing off his truly incredible camouflage powers. It goes from a brown mound to a blue water alien real quick.

6 November 2014

There’s a lot more animals than I thought there were — I think more than 25 — and they come out of nowhere. The hidden animals are called tahrs, which are related to wild goats, and to be honest, I wouldn’t even call this camouflage — it’s just really impressive hide and seek skills.

31 October 2014

Video: Pygmy seahorses are super tiny creatures that have the awesome ability to camouflage. They attach themselves to colourful corals and blend in so seamlessly that I have a hard time picking them out. What’s cool is that even if the pygmy seahorses are descendants of orange seahorses, they can adapt and become purple if that’s the only coral nearby.

26 October 2014

Can you see it? Hiding in plain sight there are two of the most stealthy creatures in the animal kingdom, almost impossible to detect. Thanks to the wonders of natural selection, these and other animals can avoid most predators and perpetuate their species. See if you can spot them all:

18 October 2014

In the early days of modern warfare, ships protected themselves from German U-boats with wild, eye-catching painted patterns called dazzle. The military moved on to new forms of camo decades ago, but for carmakers, dazzle is still the best way to protect prototype cars from being photographed.

1 October 2014

The general idea behind visual camouflage, which is to make distinctive, recognisable shapes difficult to pick out against a background, was nothing new in 1914. The point of camouflage isn’t necessarily to make oneself totally invisible, which isn’t practical for a large army.

17 September 2014

When it comes to camouflage, we lowly humans are far behind the cephalopod. Octopus, squid, and cuttlefish have the amazing ability to change colour or texture — going from scarlet red to bone white, bumpy to smooth in just seconds. But we’re making progress. Scientists at MIT and Duke have created a new stretchy camouflage skin inspired by these creatures.

5 September 2014

Here’s a fascinating map that reveals how each country defines the idea of camouflage for their military. Of course, different branches of the military have different camo needs but this map, created by a Reddit user, draws out the broad strokes.

19 August 2014

If you have not yet witnessed the wonder of an octopus changing colour instantaneously, then you should go do that right now. We humans are only slowly playing camouflage catch up. A new colour-changing sheet that adapts to the light it senses brings us a tiny step closely to octopi.

8 August 2014

After nearly a decade, multiple false-starts, and many billions of dollars, the US Army has finally chosen a new camouflage for its troops. Except it’s not exactly new. It was originally developed back in 2002. And it looks a whole lot like one of the patterns that the US Army was in talks to adopt from an independent company.